Crab Dredging in Virginia Captain John Smith

Transcription

1 QUARTERLY Winter Crab Dredging in Virginia Captain John Smith

2 President s Message QUARTERLY Winter Volume 3 Number 4 Editor Michael Valliant Graphic Design Rob Brownlee-Tomasso Contributors Kerry Wargo Clough, Cathy Connelly, Pete Lesher, Melissa McLoud, John Miller, Rachel Rébert, Lindsley Rice, Bob Savage Leigh Ann Schaefer As you ve read in the Chairman s letter, I am stepping down as President of the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum. I have accepted a new position as President of the Grayce B. Kerr Fund in Easton. I feel honored to be one of only two Executive Directors (now called President) that the Museum has had in its forty-year history. I am proud of the prominence and stature that the Museum has achieved in my nineteen years here. No one is more aware than I am that this success comes from the work we have done together the staff I have worked with, the Board of Governors, our volunteers, our donors, and you, our members. With confidence, I can tell you that the Museum is positioned to continue its success well into the future. Our leadership, behind Chairman Jim Peterson, has outlined an exciting strategy, in the form of our newly adopted Long Range Plan, to help us realize our vision to be a premier museum, excelling in communicating to the public the history and culture of the Chesapeake Bay. I have served with Jim Peterson in his various capacities as a Board member for more than eight years an association for which I am professionally and personally grateful. I have told the Chairman and the Board that I will continue Photography Rob Brownlee-Tomasso Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum Navy Point, P.O. Box 636 St. Michaels, MD Fax editor@cbmm.org The Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum is a private not-for-profit 501(c)(3) educational institution. A copy of the current financial statement is available on request by writing the Vice President of Finance, P.O. Box 636, St. Michaels, MD or by calling ext Documents and information submitted under the Maryland Charitable Solicitations Act are also available, for the cost of postage and copies, from the Maryland Secretary of State, State House, Annapolis, MD 21401, to serve as President until my successor is appointed. This will allow time to search for, and select, the right person to lead the Museum for perhaps the next twenty years. Jim Peterson and I want to assure you that this process will benefit the Museum. Transitions are times of opportunity and growth. A transition like this is ultimately less about particular people, and more about the health of the institution. The Museum is the strongest we ve ever been trends in membership and attendance are up, our campus and visitor experience are continually improving, and you are about to see some remarkable programs with our changing exhibits. As we stated in our annual report: we have grown, but our mission remains the same. It has been my great pleasure to have played a part in the Museum s success, and now in seeing it continue to grow. On the Cover Detail from the watercolor painting, A Stormy Sky by artist and illustrator Leonard W. Vosburgh ( ). Also called Stiff Breeze, the image depicts two Maryland watermen sailing their double-ended skiff full of crabbing gear under reduced sail. John R. Valliant President jvalliant@cbmm.org Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum Winter

3 Visitors to the At Play on the Bay exhibit enjoy a vintage hydroplane built by Larry Lauterbach. Departments To the Point Profile Events Calendar 9 12 * Events Calendar is a special pull-out section that can be found between pages 11 and 12. C 1-4 Features Leonard Vosburgh Contents Artist Leonard Vosburgh was known for his illustrations for numerous books and magazines. After a visit to Royal Oak in 1958, he began to paint scenes of the Chesapeake Bay. By Lindsley Rice. Canoeing on the Chesapeake Known more as cruising waters for sailboats, the Bay and its tributaries have become increasingly popular for canoes and kayaks. Our At Play on the Bay exhibit chronicles a 1917 canoe trip. By Pete Lesher. Making Do Maryland and Virginia don t agree. Scientists and watermen are at odds. There are merits and hazards to winter crab dredging. So what are the issues and where are the lines drawn? By Dr. Melissa McLoud. Discovering John Smith Historically, Captain John Smith has been overlooked or misinterpreted. On the eve of Jamestown s 400th anniverary, a cooperative initiative is working to rediscover Captain Smith. By Michael Valliant. Smith s Discovery Barge John Swain, Drew McMullen, and the crew from Sultana Projects in Chestertown have re-created the shallop John Smith used to explore the Bay. Next, they re going to re-trace his voyage. By Taylor Buckley. Contents 3

4 Loose Mainsheet captures Vosburgh s illustrative story-telling ability at its best. CBMM collection. Vosburgh, himself a decoy collector, shows wonderful attention to detail in this watercolor of a group of sports going out on a skipjack towing hunting boats carrying decoys. CBMM collection. (Opposite) Easing away from the Dock shows a ram schooner being nudged away from the warehouse. A steamboat passes in the background. In spite of the carefully observed detail in this image, the name on the ram is fictional. CBMM collection. The figure of this hunter heading home with his prey is more impressionistic than many of Vosburgh s more carefully laid-down paintings in which people appear as characters in a story. The looser brushstrokes here are more evocative of the cold grey morning and the movement of both the hunter and the wind through the marsh. CBMM collection.

5 By Lindsley Rice, Curator Returning from a 1958 visit to Colonial Williamsburg, Leonard Vosburgh and his wife Alberta first visited the Eastern Shore. They became regular visitors to the Pasadena Inn in Royal Oak, Maryland, and Vosburgh began to paint Chesapeake scenes, at first for his own enjoyment. He started to sell some of these images when, as he remembered it, the few grew into many so many, we did not have room for them all. Born in Yonkers, New York, Leonard Vosburgh made his living as a book illustrator primarily of children s books set in America s past. Vosburgh was prolific in his field; he died in 1998 with illustrations for 90 books and numerous magazines to his name. A graduate of the Pratt Institute and the Art Students League, Vosburgh studied under impressionist painters and illustrators Walter Biggs and Harvey Dunn, who also taught N.C. Wyeth. Dunn s style was more dramatic and realistic, while Biggs depicted romanticized subjects in broad, colorful strokes. Vosburgh s painting seems to draw from Dunn s preference towards depicting everyday activities of the middle and working classes, but tinged with the idealism of Biggs more impressionistic work. Although often containing carefully observed details of Chesapeake people, craft, and environment, the images Vosburgh painted were not truly drawn from life. Like his book illustrations, Vosburgh s Chesapeake paintings depict an imaginary world with fictional people and vessel names. It is nevertheless a world which reflects the artist s love for this place and for a romanticized past, from around 1870 to 1930, which he described as seeming a more stable and gentler time.